The rapper Joey Bada$$ said he “cannot compete with”
When bonafide legend of the underground rap scene, Capital STEEZ, tragically passed away at the mere age of 19, the hip-hop community was, naturally, shocked. It was an especially difficult truth to swallow for those within New York City’s Pro Era collective, a scene that Capital STEEZ was a founding member of.
Celebrated for his expansive approach to hip-hop and his lyricism, which was surprisingly intellectual and emotional for his young age and the genre he was creating in, STEEZ was a key figure of the revival of the 1990s rap sounds, with a wholly modern update for the new generation.
Fellow Pro Era founder, rapper Joey Bada$$, has gone onto great success since their early Pro Era days of the late noughties and early 2010s. Friends since childhood, Bada$$ has not forgotten STEEZ, and has mentioned him in interviews since the rapper’s devastating death in 2012.
Speaking to REVOLT TV in 2017, Joey Bada$$ discussed not just Pro Era’s upcoming project – a group LP – but also their attempts to complete STEEZ’s own project, posthumously.
“To me, STEEZ is the best rapper, period,” Bada$$ said. “That’s to me, though. Not enough people know about him. [They may ask,] why I’m saying that? Once you get into his catalog and listen to this man’s effortless cleverness that just rolls off his tongue, you’ll understand why I’m saying that. And why many cannot compete with him, including myself.”
This labour of love and respect is not only emotionally taxing but also creatively challenging. “The hardest part [of] working on his album is trying to make decisions for him,” Bada$$ said. “Trying to kind of gauge what he would want to do, how he would go about certain things. That’s probably the hardest part. Just making these calculated decisions, ‘Ok, he wouldn’t want to do this because…he would want to do this because.’”
“And just have everybody be on the same page,” the rapper continued. “Aside from that, man, it’s a great body of work. To be honest, another hard part about it is listening to the records. ‘Cause, you know, every time you hear his voice, it takes us back. It brings us into that mode. It be really hard, but we’ve gotten to the point where we’re past that. We just really focused on putting it out and making sure it’s delivered to the people who’ve been asking for it for a long time.”
“I’ma be honest, it’s scarce. It’s a scarce supply,” he commented on the actual quantity of music that STEEZ left. “That’s why we really scavenging on anything we find to be something we utilize for it because it’s not a lot of options. Fucking dick-headed ass, crazy ass n*ggas done leaked certain shit. It’s just like, it’s hard. It ain’t a easy ting, but we gonna make it great.”
Joey Bada$$ has enjoyed a brilliant career both within New Era and as a solo artist. His first two studio albums, B4.Da.$$ and All-Amerikkan Badass, both peaked within the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. Unfortunately, his most recent studio album – this year’s Lonely at the Top – proved to be lonely at the mid-section too, with only minor chart performance. It was, however, well received by fans and critics, with praise for his lyricism and maturity.